The Stain of Errors on the Self

Carl Olson is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Allegheny College. He has edited and authored 23 books and over 265 book reviews, journal essays, and essays in book anthologies. During his tenure at Allegheny College, Olson was appointed to The National Endowment for the Humanities Chair and Holder of the Teacher-Scholar Chair in the Humanities. From 2001 to 2002, Olson held a Visiting Fellowship at Claire Hall, University of Cambridge.

Preface


Part 1 

Past Approaches to the Problem of the Self



1 Introduction

 1 Problematic Nature of Comparative Philosophy


 2 Indian Philosophy on the Nature of Error


 3 The Role of Error in Life


 4 Selected Western Thinkers and Error


 5 Error and Narrative


 6 Existence of the Self


 7 Preview of Future Chapters




2 Narrative Theorists

 1 Ricoeur and Narrative Self


 2 Taylor and Narrative Self


 3 Dennett and the Narrative Self


 4 Anti-narrative Position of Strawson


 5 Strawson’s Concept of the Self


 6 Critical Critique of Thinkers


 7 Concluding Comments




3 Postmodernism, Non-self, and Other

 1 Levinas and the Face of the Other


 2 Derrida and Deconstruction of the Self


 3 Deleuze and the Changing Self


 4 French Feminist Critique of the Self: Kristeva and Irigaray


 5 Non-Self and Buddhism


 6 Critical Critique of Postmodernists


 7 Concluding Remarks




Part 2

A Reconsideration of the Problem of the Self

4 Journey, Place, Play, Escape, and Identity

 1 Space and Place


 2 Eastern Counterpoints to Tuan’s Notion of Place


 3 Remarks about the Nature of Play


 4 Escapism and Play


 5 The Hindu Theistic Mode of Escape


 6 The Daoist Mode of Adjusting


 7 Human Identity


 8 Concluding Remarks




5 The Self and the Nightmare of History

 1 DeLillo and Historical Time


 2 Mitchell and Time


 3 Self, History, and Violence


 4 Reactions to the Terror of History


 5 The Absurdity of It All


 6 Self and Time in the Comparative Mode


 7 Time, Error, and the Postmodern Perspective


 8 Concluding Comments




6 Self, Other, Body and God

 1 The Other


 2 The Self and Embodiment


 3 Flesh and Sexuality


 4 The Existence of the Wholly Other


 5 God, Nature, and Ecology


 6 Concluding Remarks




7 Opps!

 1 Discovering Selfhood


 2 Identity Lost


 3 Identity Found


 4 Impersonal Identity


 5 False Identity


 6 Death and the Narrative Conclusion


 7 Stained Memory


 8 The Stain of Error


 9 Identity of the Self


 10 The Stain of Opps


 11 Paradoxical Aspects of the Self


 12 Play and Work


 13 Concluding Remarks




Bibliography


Index